


The Soldier and the Apprentice

by samidha



Category: Dark Angel, Supernatural
Genre: Ableism, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Mad Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Descent into Madness, Episode Related, Episode: s01e18 Pollo Loco, Episode: s05e16 Dark Side of the Moon, Eugenics, Gen, I unapologetically love Ben X5, I'm Super Proud Of This One Seriously, Madness, Memory, Minor Canonical Character(s), My first crossover, One of My Favorites, Panic Room, Podfic Welcome, Psychic Abilities, Psychological Trauma, Solitary Confinement, Threats, Various X5 characters, canon neurodivergent character, canonical ableism, canonical indoctrination, eidactic memory, hyperlexic-ish character, indoctrination, internalized ableism, panic room (additional)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 07:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10737171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/samidha
Summary: He is the teller of stories.  He is the one who has given his life to the Lady, has risked everything time and again.





	The Soldier and the Apprentice

**Author's Note:**

> Unrepentant smashing of timelines together.
> 
> Written in 2011.

”In heaven, I have six wings and four faces, one of whom is a lion. You see this because you’re...limited.” - Zachariah, Dark Side of the Moon

*~*~*

Ben watches as Jack seizes, holding back his own shiver of revulsion. He knows what the seizures really mean. He watches his brother shake violently and his vision clouds as dread runs along every nerve in his body. Jack is the strongest in the unit, the most decisive on maneuvers in the field. But none of that can save him from his own internal weakness. 

Max has the seizures, too. He’s seen them when he isn’t supposed to be watching her, when it’s past time to bunk down and they’re each alone with their nightmares. Any one of them could develop some kind of brain disease and be taken to the Bad Place.

So far they’ve managed to keep Jack’s seizures a secret, but they’re increasing in frequency even though Jack has already pulled two of his teeth for the Lady. He was blessed the night he received the picture of the Lady and it stopped his shaking. The janitor had been sent at just the right time, and they had all known it for a sign. But Jack’s time is running short now. They won’t be able to hide his weakness for much longer.

*~*~*

Time speeds past once Ben makes this final assessment of Jack. There are three close calls in the next two weeks and their little brother’s fate is obvious to the whole unit. It’s been three weeks and five days when Jack drops to the floor in front of a passing guard. 

The guards don’t even wait the seizure out.

Jack is hauled away by the arms as he twitches and writhes. It takes less than three minutes from the time he drops until he’s pulled through the door and out of their room in the barracks.

It takes less than three minutes for Jack to disappear.

*~*~*

Ben’s bare feet nearly freeze to the side of the building as he climbs to the High Place. He moves at top speed to avoid the pain of the cold. He spiders up the building and onto the roof, ducking into the one crevice out of view of the surveillance cameras and searchlights. 

He has nothing to offer but his own pain and confusion, the terror that sings along his bones as he thinks of his brother, disappeared forever. His eyes water and he wants to cry. It would be simpler, quieter, but when he opens his mouth all that comes is a surge of anger up and out, riding a guttural scream that tears loose from him almost without his consent. He tries to hold back another, but it flies out into the air in a loud rush. 

Finally, he finds words. ”Why?! We believe in you!” he screams at the sky.

The blare of sirens breaks through the quiet all around him, but Ben keeps his eyes focused right where they were, challenging the heavens.

Lightning splits the sky, striking the roof of the building not ten feet from where Ben stands. The roof is plunged into darkness as the searchlights short out, and all he can see is the afterimage of the lightning. He backpedals instinctively, three quick, desperate steps. When he can focus his eyes again something is there in the place where the lightning struck, standing amid acrid smoke that drifts up from the now-molten concrete. The figure is framed by its own inner light, wings of shadow spreading out far from its body. Its teeth gleam brightly, standing out in the face of a lion.

A Nomaly. A Nomaly is standing here, out of its cell and watching him, as if considering its next meal.

The winged lion creature meets his eyes and a voice settles easily into his head, amid his thoughts but clearly not his own.

 _Hello, Ben_ , the creature says. 

The world tilts and the ground rushes up to meet him. When the guards find him and drag him back inside, he doesn’t even feel it.

*~*~*

When he wakes again, he is in a completely barren room. There isn’t even a standard-issue cot inside it.

Punishment, then.

He pulls himself to his feet, then sits against the rounded wall and draws his knees up to his chest. There’s no telling how long he’ll be here, though of course he knows the reason for his solitary confinement. 

The room is nearly pitch black, but up close to the wall he catches sight of dark shapes of many outlined symbols, weaving together and apart again. He circles the whole room, one hand running along the symbols as he goes. He slows his breathing and opens his mind, using his night vision and photographic memory to catalog the images. It doesn’t take much time at all, but somehow it feels important to him, like a job well done.

He leans against the cool metal of the door of his solitary cell and listens to the pattern of footsteps out in the hall.

Time inches along. He dozes lightly, until the quiet pattern of footsteps outside of his cell is interrupted by a voice, the noise like an explosion of sound across his awareness after so long in silence and darkness.

”...Psy-ops?” A woman’s voice comes to him, sounding as if it is just on the other side of the door.

”Not necessary,” a second woman says firmly.

”But it may have been an escape plot,” says the first woman. ”We need to know what he knows.”

Suddenly a voice sounds in his head, just like the winged lion’s words settled easily into his mind. _Be not afraid_ , says the second woman, and when he squints his eyes mostly shut he can see her face in his mind’s eye, kind and ringed with straight red hair. The image flickers briefly so that he sees the head of a mother bear and four wings of shadow at her sides, just like the creature on the roof. But just as quickly as it comes, the vision seems to slip sideways and the image of the winged bear resolves into that of the kind-hearted woman. ”I want to see him,” she says out loud.

”His confinement is--”

”I’ll be the judge of what this punishment is doing to him,” the kind woman replies. ”Open the door.”

Ben scrambles away from the door quickly and it opens with the heavy sound of metal scraping on concrete. He squints against the sudden light, instinctively shrinking in on himself as his eyes burn. With his eyes mostly closed he can just make them out. The kind woman with red hair is exactly as he saw her in his mind. She offers him a smile that fits her face like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. Real and not dark, dark like the black painted symbols all along the floor, the walls, ceiling, as he casts wild eyes about the space, learning the dips and swirls, all the right angles, all the circles and ovals and crosses and everything, everything he can land his eyes on in this new light. He knows the shapes in the dark, but they are stark in the light now and he wants to see them, wants to understand, to catalog, to learn.

The kind woman stays out in the hallway as the other, with spiky, near-white hair, advances into his cell. One of her hands comes to rest on his cheek and she cups his face possessively. Her nails are sharp against his skin and painted white to match her hair. ”Perhaps three more days in solitary,” she suggests.

”Do you want to be responsible for breaking the child?” the kind woman asks, words tinted with anger. 

”He can withstand--”

”One more day. Then this ends. Do you understand?” 

”Yes,” the answer comes from behind clenched teeth. 

”As long as that’s the case,” the kind woman says. ”Leave him now.”

The white-haired woman lets her hand fall from his face. She moves through the door and it falls closed again with an echoing clang, and then his captors are gone.

*~*~*

After an impossible stretch of time--just one day, just one, that’s all--he hears the familiar, heavy steps of Lydecker’s gait come down the hall and stop in front of his door. Two other people, lighter on their feet, follow at his heels. The door opens and Ben squints into the light. The other two are, unsurprisingly, guards. They stand at attention with night-sticks in their hands and tazers at their belts, blocking the doorway of his cell as Lydecker regards him.

”Hello, 493,” Lydecker says, gruff and serious. ”I have some questions before we return you to your unit.” He watches Ben with hard, dark eyes, as if daring Ben to challenge him.

Ben scrambles to attention. ”Yes, sir,” he says.

”Are you a flight risk, 493?”

”No, sir.”

”Do you understand what that means?”

”Yes, sir. You’re asking if I might try to escape. I wasn’t trying to, sir.”

”What were you doing on the roof if not trying to escape?”

”Sir, I was-- I wanted some air, sir.”

”On the roof? You expect me to believe that, 493?”

Ben swallows hard and shivers. This is not Psy-ops. This is not the Bad Place. He won’t give up the secret of their Lady, not to anyone. ”It’s the truth, sir. It was just after they took J-- X5-417, sir.” 

The man nods, anger and sadness seeming to flash across his face before his eyes settle back on stern and questioning.

”I was...confused,” Ben adds. ”About him disappearing.”

”Yes. I can understand that,” Lydecker says almost gently.

Shock zings all through him, settling deep in his stomach in a dizzying rush. ”Thank you, sir,” is all he can find to say, and he nearly chokes on the certainty that follows--the knowledge that Zack and Max would be bitterly disappointed in him. 

”Can you promise me, X5-493, that 417 was the only thing on your mind that night?”

”Yes, sir.”

”If that’s the truth, I’m ready for your training to resume.”

”Yes, sir.”

”You narrowly escaped Psy-ops, 493. If you’re caught on the roof again, you won’t be so lucky.”

That’s the second time in as many days he’s heard of this new place, and he doesn’t know what it would mean to be sent there, but the idea sends an icy shiver down his spine. ”Yes, sir.”

Lydecker steps back and the two guards take point. They lead Ben out of solitary with a night-stick pressed hard to the small of his back. He arrives back at the barracks in time for the evening slides. Tonight they start at 17:30, which marks the day as Friday. Fridays always mean more slides and no evening drills, to match the relative shortage of guards and other staff.

Fridays are when they go to the High Place. They can’t risk it on a regular basis, but they reserve all their prayers and tales for the Lady for the Fridays that they feel bravest, or maybe just the most desperate.

Ben settles into his usual seat, Zack to his left and Max to his right. The three of them sit quietly, eyes carefully kept forward as ever, but Max settles one of her hands on his knee and Zack, his face the picture of relief, murmurs a soft, ”Welcome back,” in his ear. Ben smiles to himself as the slides speed past: _MISSION. DUTY. DISCIPLINE. TEAMWORK. MISSION. DISCIPLINE._

He sees a flash out of the corner of his eye. His inner vision suddenly focuses on the lion-headed, winged creature. Its teeth gleam bright in its mouth. Then the vision shifts to the right and he sees a balding man in a suit smiling almost hungrily at him. A glance away from the slide show and back to the door of their room rewards him with the sight he expects: he recognizes two faces peering in at them, Lydecker and the man in the suit. 

Ben reaches down to squeeze Max’s hand and swallows back his fear.

*~*~* 

The shrine to the Lady remains deserted for three whole weeks. By the time the third Friday rolls around, being away has caused an ache deep inside of Ben, spreading from his chest into the pit of his stomach. He needs so badly to stand before his unit of twelve, feel the rain misting down onto their heads and the wind at their backs. He needs the feel of the Lady’s picture solid in his hand, or a tooth between his forefinger and thumb. He needs to see them all looking back at him, their eyes bright as they listen to the stories of their Lady fighting the Nomalies.

But he can’t have these things today. Five floors below him, Max lies in the grip of her imperfections, shaking so hard in a seizure that, watching her, Ben had half expected to hear the snap of bones. 

The others are in their room, half pretending not to hear Max’s struggle while the rest huddle around her bed, some with their hands pressed gently into her high-and-tight or holding her hands. 

Jack’s disappearance is so fresh. Their brother’s bed hasn’t even been removed yet. Ben pushes his own fear deep into the back of his mind, focusing on the misery on the faces of his unit and what he can do to alleviate it.

Today he has come to ask the Lady to pardon his teammate, his sister, the one who gave him his name, who fuels Zack’s dreams and asks to hear his stories nearly every night just because she knows he needs to tell them.

He scrambles across the roof and into the visual dead zone where he set down their tiny shrine. He brings out one of Max’s teeth, pulled from the back of her mouth with a pair of pliers Zack stole from somewhere deep inside the headquarters. Like Jack, Max has now given two teeth. Ben settles the offering among the others and wills his thoughts away from his disappeared brother. He’s come to pray for Max, and he has to keep his attention on her and her alone.

”Blue Lady,” he says, falling to his knees on cold, damp concrete. ”Please listen. Please protect Max from being disappeared. I don’t think the unit can handle losing anyone else.”

There is no answer in his mind but a looming dread, no peace to be found here even in the open air, no matter how still he sits or how blank his mind is. Half an hour ticks by, and then another. Something inside of him tells him to wait, to be patient, though he can’t be calm. His skin prickles and he can’t stop looking over his shoulder.

Then, in the time it takes to blink, there is the sound of rushing wings and he sees the lion-man again. It advances toward him, lips pulled all the way back from its teeth.

Ben forgets to breathe.

 _There is only one way for all of this to end, boy_ , the words ring in his mind. _Are you tired of being afraid? Are you ready, Ben?_

All Ben can think of is the gleam of teeth, teeth, teeth, perfect and vicious and exposed.

 _Show me what a good soldier you can be_ , says the lion-headed one. _Let go of your fear. It will never serve you where you’re going._

”I--”

_It does no good to fear me, boy. There are far worse dangers than those who have been watching you. Protecting you. Making you ready._

Ben shivers there in his place on his knees, damp and confused and wanting to climb back into his barracks room and into his cot to get warm.

_Are you a good soldier, Ben?_

”Yes, sir,” he answers automatically. 

The lion opens its mouth wide and steps toward him again.

 _Show me._

The lion-man bends toward him and just--waits.

Ben does the first thing that comes into his frightened mind. Before he can stop and think he finds himself offering up his arm, his hand aiming inside the lion’s mouth.

Light dances across the lion’s eyes. Ben can feel the pressure of its teeth as they close lightly around his arm, but there is no blood and no pain. Ben forces himself to keep eye contact with the creature, whose eyes are bright with amusement. The lion’s tongue runs over his flesh and then he steps back, letting Ben’s arm fall from inside his mouth.

 _Well done, soldier. Go inside. Tell your brother, Zack,_ The lion’s eyes twinkle again. _the Lady says it’s time._

”Time for what?” he asks, unable to hold back his question.

Between one blink and the next, the lion-man has shifted form, standing just to the right of where he was. Again, Ben sees the balding man in the suit. His human eyes sparkle with satisfaction and his smile is hungry. _He has a plan_ , the man says, and he doesn’t stop smiling that hungry smile. _Why, Ben? Did you think you were the only one we were talking to?_

Shock and betrayal burn all the way through him. He is the teller of stories. He is the one who has given his life to the Lady, has risked everything time and again to come here to this spot. Risked the Nomalies, risked disappearing. Everything. Of course he had thought all of it meant something. And now--

Ben turns away from the voice without uttering a word.

 _Ben, Ben, Ben_. A surge of power rushes through him. _Look at me_ , says the man in the suit, and he finds himself turning and looking as if under someone else’s control. _Just because you’ve been chosen doesn’t mean you can do it all yourself. Your unit will have to support you. We’ve made sure all of them know to play their parts when the time comes. It won’t be long--_

”Chosen?”

 _With good reason_ , says the man in the suit, with that same hungry smile tugging his lips. _Go now_ , he says, giving him a little push with an invisible power that causes him to stumble back two paces before he nods and turns on his heel to make the long climb down.

*~*~*

When he returns to the barracks, the smell of fear is still pungent in the air, but the room is quiet, almost deadly still. Max has stopped seizing, but Zack hovers near her bed, one of her hands still in his as she sleeps. 

Ben doesn’t want to wake her, but if anyone were to hear him whispering to Zack, it might as well be his sister.

”The Lady says you have a plan,” he whispers to his brother. ”The Lady says it’s time.” The lie only burns a little on his tongue. 

”But what about the man in the suit?” Zack asks him.

Ben feels all of the color drain out of his face, but it seems that’s all the answer Zack needs.

*~*~*

Zack knows more about the barracks than the rest of them combined. Ben thinks fleetingly, now, of the stolen pliers, and he wonders who whispered in Zack’s ear about them. If Ben is the chosen one, why does Zack know so much? He listens to Zack as he unspools his elaborate plan, and he keeps a stormy silence. The man in the suit said Ben was chosen. He watches the rest of his unit listen to Zack with adoration on their faces, and he feels sick and scared. What if the man in the suit, or the kind lady, chose the wrong X5s? Still, as Zack tells the story of how they’re going to escape, of how Zack is already planning to protect them all once they’re out in the world, Ben thinks that at least that won’t be his task. He isn’t charged with something he wouldn’t be capable of doing. 

He sees the way all of them look at Zack as if he is the answer to their every prayer, the leader they have been waiting for, and he wonders if they haven’t all heard from the man in the suit in their own way.

He bites his lip and tastes blood as he commits Zack’s words to memory.

It won’t be long now. It won’t be long at all.

*~*~*

Night falls. Ben listens hard as the sounds of footsteps dwindle down to nearly nothing, and when Zack shakes him by the shoulder he’s ready, jumping out of bed for what will be the last time. They each go around to the other beds. Ben wakes Tinga and Syl; Zack wakes Max and Krit. They all move as quickly as they can, gathered together, thrumming with fear and excitement, in three minutes flat.

They climb down the building in perfect tandem, running in a loose knot. They have paired off in units of two for as long as they can stay together, maybe as far as the perimeter fence. Ben clears a path through the brush for Brin, even though she’s well past strong enough to do it for herself. Still, they’ve got fifty feet to go when she falls to the ground. 

One word rings in his mind again and again.

 _Chosen_.

He doesn’t have to let Brin get to the fence. 

Ben stops. He tastes blood. He imagines what would happen if he kicked her kneecap free of its place, if he broke her leg.

If he never let her taste freedom.

He is the chosen one. The only one who needs to get over the fence.

But if he turns now, if he takes the blood of one of his sisters, it will only make him more of a target; it will only thin the ranks and give Lydecker one less hurdle in rounding them all up. In rounding Ben up.

He has to forget everything he knows of this place, even the small kindnesses Lydecker has given him over the years, even being spared Psy-ops. He has to get over the fence, to his new life, the one he has been chosen for.

He pulls hard on Brin’s arm, bringing her to her feet again and then he lets her go, taking off like a shot for the fence.

He doesn’t dare wait another second.

*~*~*

Today is the anniversary of his escape from Manticore. Ben stands in the forest bordering the city of Seattle. Something has called him here, something more than the two minute check-in call from Zack; Zack, who can’t hold back his irritation over Maxie being here, staying put like a well-fed cat while the rest of them run, run, run like wild dogs.

Max is here, but it’s something else that draws him, something that only the Lady will know in the end. 

Ben moves through the forest, aching for the sight of blood again, for the certainty of where he will find his next set of teeth, when he sees the flash of lightning just in front of him, blackening the forest floor but causing him no harm. 

The man in the suit stands in front of him for the first time since the night of the escape, smiling his hungry smile and holding another man by the collar of his leather jacket.

The second man levels his penetrating green eyes at Ben and the air rushes out of his lungs.

It’s like looking into a mirror.

Ben swallows hard around a sudden rush of adrenaline. The man standing in front of him is dangerous, in a way none of his victims, in fact no other humans, have ever been before. Ben knows in a second that it’s more than looks that connect the two of them. This man has the blessing of the Lady, of the lion-headed one, and maybe even the woman with the face of the bear from so long ago. 

There’s a rush of air so thick that it takes Ben off his feet and carries him until he slams into a tree. The other man is carried across the clearing to another tree facing Ben.

”Dean, this is Ben. Ben, Dean.” The man in the suit, the man who is not a man at all, smiles so wide, like he’s letting them in on a secret, like this is the best day he’s ever had.

Finally, the one called Dean speaks. Even the man’s voice is familiar to Ben when he asks, ”What the hell-- What is this?”

”Insurance.” The man in the suit smiles even wider, and Ben feels sick inside. 

_(”State your designation.” The night-stick came down hard against the back of his knees and he tumbled to the floor._

_”My name is Ben!” he shouted, and he hoped the words held enough power to make Max proud, Max who had loved him enough to give him the name of a real boy. ”My name is Ben!”)_

”Insurance,” says the man with Ben’s face.

The man in the suit nods. ”You just go ahead and say no, Dean. We have more where you came from. Lots more.” And all he does is smile, smile, smile and look at Ben like he knows every single one of his secrets. ”This one is even better than you are. He can hear my true voice, he sees part of my true form. Makes things so much easier. But that’s not even the icing on the cake. He knows how to take orders. Tell him to do anything and he’s putty in your hands. It’s all he wants, to take orders again. Isn’t it, Ben? Makes the whole world make sense.”

“The hell do you need me for, then?” Dean growls. His voice is deeper, rougher, like he’s spent so much of his life screaming that he doesn’t know how to stop. 

”So....what? You think I should throw you in the pit and get it over with? Where’s the fun in that?” 

”Save you a lot of trouble,” Dean asks. ”Or is there something wrong with this one?”

The man in the suit shrugs, eyes Dean like a cat playing with a mouse before he eats it. ”You play hard to get. Sometimes I like that in a vessel. Though I do admit I’m fond of my little X5s. I tell you...give one man the tiniest bit of an idea and suddenly you’ve got a whole gaggle of genetic anomalies and a crop of custom-engineered soldiers whose whole existence boils down to being your slaves. It can really go to a man’s head if he isn’t careful. Sandeman started with one little dog-human hybrid and next he was envisioning the Nobel Peace Prize. The army so well-engineered it would put the fear of God into all other nations, the army to end all wars the world over. Would have done wonders in Afghanistan if Manticore had gotten its ducks in a row.”

The man in the suit steps up to Ben, runs a finger possessively along his cheek. Ben pulls back as far as he can from the man’s touch. ”But I suppose in the end they were still given too much free will. This one, he escaped with his entire unit in tow. Of course, I orchestrated it myself. I had to know I could get to one of your clones in a pinch without alerting certain...authorities.” 

”Listen, Zachariah--” Dean begins, and a shiver works its way down Ben’s spine. He remembers the night up on the roof, the twinkle in the lion’s eyes as it told him to go find his brother. ”--I know you’re having fun with this evil monologuing but I gotta say it’s pretty tiring. If he’s so great, just use him. Game over. You win.”

”Ah, but will you let that happen, Dean? Somehow it doesn’t seem quite your style.”

”Then you want me for it. So let him go.”

”I do that and you’re as good as dead,” Zachariah says. ”This one is a little blood-thirsty. Must have been all the time in solitary, hmm, Ben? Took away your inhibitions.” The man’s smile is proud. ”Still, he’s useful when we need him. Well-built. Comes from good stock.”

Ben’s skin prickles with sudden nervous energy as Zachariah advances. He feels sick inside. ”You told me I was chosen,” he says.

Zachariah smiles that hungry cat smile. ”Bit of a half-truth, I’m afraid. Dean here was chosen. You were, you’ve always been, our fail-safe. But if it makes you feel any better, you’ve always been my favorite, Ben. Such a good soldier. You’d do anything to be told that again, wouldn’t you? There’s no question that you’d say yes. That’s what I like about you.”

His blood runs cold.

_(Anger bloomed across Eva’s face. Her eyes were suddenly dark and serious, her face almost not recognizable as her own. When she kicked out at the guard, she aimed just right, taking him down with one hit and using her second kick to dislodge his gun. She moved as quickly as she could to get the gun off the barracks floor, cock it and aim it._

_When she leveled the gun at the guards, he was certain that nothing of his sister was left behind those dark eyes._

_The guard’s gun went off a second before Eva could pull the trigger, dropping her to the floor._

_She should have been dead before she hit the floor. The shot was aimed directly for the center of her head. But on her way down she grabbed for Ben’s arm, three desperate words hanging in the air between them._

_”I said yes.”)_

”What are you?” Ben demands.

”The humans would call me an angel,” Zachariah says.

Ben catches the hint of something at the edge of his hearing, registers something maybe fifteen feet past the edge of the clearing. Someone, something, is moving with the deadly quiet of a hunter. He listens to the approach, not daring to turn his attention in the direction of the noise. He doesn’t hear the flap of wings or the gait of one of his X5 brothers. No. It’s something else. But something is coming.

He meets Dean’s eyes across the clearing and watches the same realization come to his clone’s (nothing, nothing, he’s nothing more than a _clone_ )’s features. He wills Zachariah not to be watching Dean. In the next second he sees a man break through the trees holding tightly to a knife. The air shimmers with power, rippling like a heat mirage as the knife flies across the entire clearing and finds its mark perfectly in Zachariah’s chest. 

The angel tumbles to the forest floor. His shadow wings spread out from his body and for a second Ben can see four heads sprouting from his prone form. The lion-eagle-dragon-angel flaps its six wings desperately but can’t lift itself from the ground. The air fills with a nearly blinding light. The man who threw the knife takes off across the clearing and stands in front of Zachariah, and Ben watches him give the knife a good, hard twist. There is one last, long flash and the angel lies still on the forest floor.

Confusion and betrayal burn low in his gut as he looks at the body of the one he once thought of as his benefactor. 

He should have known there was no one watching over him, not really. He’s nothing more than an X5. Nothing more than a loose collection of DNA manipulated by man.

Ben and Dean are released from the angel’s power in the same instant. 

”Sam,” Dean croaks, and Zachariah’s killer runs to his side. “Nice work.” Sam runs his hands over nearly every inch of Dean, quickly and efficiently checking for injuries the way Zack or Max would have done after drills. Dean moves out from under Sam’s hands. ”Check on the other guy.”

Sam crosses the clearing to him and gives him a once-over with his eyes. A second later, Dean joins him. Dean’s gaze follows Ben’s to Zachariah’s corpse and then he meets Ben’s eyes. Dean stares at him like he can see all the way through him.

Ben looks away, instead focusing on Sam, Sam who made the kill that could have (should have) been his.

Ben feels an instantaneous change in the air, looks up to see danger flooding into every line of Dean’s body. Dean steps pointedly between Sam and Ben. He raises his voice. ”So. He told you you were chosen,” he says. ”And you liked it. Made you feel all warm inside, huh? How long did he have his teeth in you?” His gaze suddenly seems bottomless and so dark that it sends Ben reeling, makes him break into a cold sweat. He would do anything to get away, but he can’t move, can’t think. Now he understands the danger he felt as soon as Dean appeared. He can feel the slick ichor of the Bad Place clinging to Dean, reflecting on his face. One look into his eyes and Ben feels the world drop away. The only thing he is aware of is Dean. Dean, who knows the taste of blood just as well as Ben. Dean, who _knows_.

Dean advances, stepping into Ben’s space without an ounce of fear visible on his face. ”You like the way the blood looks,” he says, like he’s stealing the thought right out of Ben’s head. Sam steps up beside Dean, stands shoulder to shoulder with him, boot to boot. ”You wanna try and get away with something, Ben?” Dean smiles the most dangerous smile Ben has ever seen. 

Their gazes lock, and Ben can’t look away.

For the first time in years, he feels real fear.

It burns all the way down.

**Author's Note:**

> tbh that moment upon rereading when you realize you wrote this crossover because they're both/all serial killers. Welp. I mean. But I love this fic, I put a ton of work into it at the time. Hope you like(d) it.


End file.
